Women writers and alchemy in early modern Britain / Sajed Chowdhury

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chowdhury, Sajed, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism.

Alchemy in literature.

Women and literature--Great Britain--History--16th century.

Women and literature.

Women and literature--Great Britain--History--17th century.

English literature--Women authors.

English literature--Early modern.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026

Summary:

"Scholars have long known that writers such as Shakespeare, Milton and Marvell drew upon alchemy – the craft of chemical transmutation – to depict the transformative operations of the male literary imagination. But how did the female contemporaries of these male authors utilise alchemical discourse? Sajed Chowdhury shows that alchemy had particular relevance for women because of its affiliation with 'kitchen chymistry': the domestic production of medicine, culinary ingredients and cosmetics. He analyses how women writers manipulated 'chymical' discourse to foreground the transformative intellectual agency of female alchemical practitioners. Diverse authors and genres are discussed, including medical papers and prose meditations by Grace Mildmay, poetry by Hester Pulter and plays and fiction by Margaret Cavendish. Reintegrating women's literary thought and practice to early modern British 'chymical' understandings of mind, soul and body, this study is a landmark in histories of science and women's writing"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

Introduction : ‘Shee was a lover of the studdie and practice of alchimy’

Women’s prose meditations and the ‘Art of Diuine Chimistry’

The poet as maker : Hester Pulter

Hermeticism and the woman writer : Katherine Philips

Lady Alchymya and the authoress : Margaret Cavendish

Psychology, alchemy and the woman poet : Lucy Hutchinson

Female alchemical literary traditions

‘The adept ladys’ : Dissolving and rehabilitating women’s alchemical cultures

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed July 20, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Chowdhury, Sajed Women writers and alchemy in early modern Britain

ISBN:

9781009744621

1009744623

OCLC:

1573626890

Publisher Number:

CIPO000406816

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license